A State Of Sin Amsterdam Occult Series Book Two, Mark Hobson [notion reading list txt] 📗

at the top of their voice, causing a right ruckus. They were speaking the lingo, which I don’t understand too much I’m afraid, but thankfully everybody speaks perfect English and when I heard the word ‘fire’, well I tell you I’ve never moved so fast for decades. I thought this place was on fire, and I came down this corridor,” he indicated the passage behind them, “well I moved so fast they might want to sign me up for the next Paralympics! It was only when I reached the window here that I realized the fire was down there.” He nodded at the blackened shell across the road. “It was a grand sight I tell you. But as to your question – did I see anything or anyone acting suspiciously? I’m afraid not. The fire engines were just arriving, and with the fog and the flames and the smoke it was hard to make much out.”

Pieter felt the frustration make his body sag. It had been worth a try all right, but to no avail.

“However,” Ernie went on, “there was something, a couple of nights earlier.”

Pieter’s head swivelled around.

“There was a man, in a van. Cruising around for hours. Up and down the street and slowing down every time he went past the house there, the one where the murders happened. He would come right along here and turn along this side street, do a three-point- turn, and go back. Then, five minutes later he would be back, doing the same thing, over and over, for a good few hours.”

“Did you get a look at him? What time would it have been?”

“Oh, very late. Past seven o’clock.”

“So it would have been too dark to see him clearly?”

“True. If he’d stayed inside his van, that is, but he didn’t. He got out at one point. Parked up exactly where you have down there – that’s a nice motor by the way, Mister – and walked along the street. Went right along the pavement on one side, crossed over, and then came back along the pavement on the opposite side. All the time looking over at the house there. Thinking about it now, it gives me the wobblies, knowing what he had planned.” He shivered extravagantly. “If it were your man, of course.”

“And what did he look like?” He tried to keep his voice calm, but inside he felt his excitement levels rising.

“Ah well, he was shortish. Stocky, like he worked out or something, or maybe had a manual job. He had arms like Popeye.”

“And his face?”

Ernie sucked in between his teeth and grimaced, then shook his head, the beret going all lopsided.

“Well that’s the problem. He had a hat on. One of those baseball caps. It was pulled down tight, and he had his collar turned up, so I couldn’t really make out his features, but he was wearing overalls, brownish ones, and he had huge working boots on. I could hear his footsteps quite clearly from up here.”

“Was this just the one night or have you seen him around here on other occasions? Was he a local resident?”

“I only clapped eyes on him that one time, and I’m sure he doesn’t live around here. This is quite an exclusive street, with well-off people walking their Shih Tzus or hosting dinner parties. That’s why he stood out so much, because of what he was wearing.”

Behind them, an elderly lady came up the stairs and walked by, and Pieter caught the look that passed between her and Ernie. He watched as she went down the passage and disappeared into one of the bedrooms. A moment later and she popped her head around the doorframe, looking their way.

Ernie shuffled about in his wheelchair. “Sorry I can’t be of much help. Now I have to dash, I have a date.”

Pieter felt his eyebrows shoot up.

Ernie had a big grin on his face. “I just tell them that I fought at Arnhem in 1944,” he laughed and swivelled his wheelchair about.

“Really?” Pieter said, doing the maths in his head.

“Yes, it works every time!”

And with that, he whizzed off down the hallway towards the open door.

While they had been chatting, the Chief Pathologist Prisha Kapoor had sent him a text message. The initial results from the toxicology tests had come in, and of the findings from the lab, one in particular had caught her eye.

Both bodies of the deceased couple contained a foreign substance in their bloodstreams. They had both been injected with the strong sedative Midazolam, an anaesthetic only available in hospitals or private medical facilities, and under strict licence. Certainly not something that you could purchase from your local pharmacy.

With Dr Bakker’s profession, it was feasible that he may have stored some at home, for whatever purpose, but would he have had cause to inject both himself and his wife with it?

Pieter couldn’t think of a plausible reason.

Chapter 11

Journeys Through the Night

When Tobias left the bookshop he could hardly think straight, and although he tried walking along Damrak as casually as possible, it felt like his head was all wobbly and lopsided, and the world appeared all askew.

The streets and people and traffic all around seemed different somehow, like he had suddenly awoken in a strange city inhabited by peculiar and unfamiliar beings. He felt lost and completely alone, a sensation that he recognized from his adolescence: as a young teenager, Tobias had developed a whole range of complexes, some of them so debilitating that even after years of counselling they still affected him now in his middle-age. Predominant amongst these was the crippling self-consciousness that had made having a normal day-to-day existence impossible, the feeling that whenever he left the house, everybody was watching him. On the bus or tram, at school and later at work, in the supermarket, or even when having a stroll along a quiet beach or through the park, he was convinced he was under constant scrutiny and observation. Thousands of pairs of eyes